Glory in battle, or an eternity in the void. Make my target or spiral into the great beyond and die in shame. That is the demand I must make of myself, and my ‘Mech, every time we take this leap.

Void Delver’s jump jets roared to life hurling us from the drop bay of the CSR Pinnion out into the cold void beyond and setting the old Warhammer IIC shuddering like a reed in the wind. The sea of stars was empty but for the vast flanks of the jumpship that grew by the moment beyond my transpex as the sound of the jets fell away replaced only with a gasp of pressurizing air and the cold hum of the reactor beneath me. 

“Jeremiah,” Polsten called, my accompanying Commander following me from the bay only a few moments behind, “Beta Star on your six.”

“Aff, Polsten. Everything look good back there?” I queried, tracking Delver a few degrees right as the Jumpship started a meager burn to port.

“Green across the board. Time to give these pirate bastards hell.” He answered with a grunt as the rest of our stars maneuvered into place around me.

“Good, burn on my mark.”  Delver’s jets lit again, gulping away at their fuel reserves and burning down on the ship, the force driving me back into my command couch.

A burst of fire zips past my cockpit, the light of a searing laser biting away at the void at my side, the vibrant blue of screaming particles, and the flash of tracers streaming off into the beyond fill the void around us. Shells, particles and laser fire came like rain on the plains, forcing our two Stars to bob and weave through the onslaught if we had any hope of touching down. Delver’s systems let out a scream of static and pain as I dodged to the left around a burst of cannon fire, sailing into a particle that splashed into our chest with an explosion of slagged armor. 

“Five seconds.” I growled through gritted teeth, cutting past the chatter of Alpha and Beta as they took hit after hit from the defending guns. The ‘Mech’s nav system chirped as I marked my distance before hauling Delver upright, bracing her for the landing.

Delver’s track ball closed ever closer to the firing mark as we fell, each passing second sending a twitch of anticipation down my spine as I stood ready to plunge the jump paddles down. The incoming fire redoubled, what had been a rain became a downpour as the Jumpship brought every gun it had around to bear against us. 

“Auxiliary Tank Low: 10%.” The Warhammer IIC’s onboard announced in her grating, metallic voice as I pulled Delver up, knocking her back as I stamped my feet down and forced her jets to life. A howl of anticipation poured through her frame as we came down on the ship’s hull with a resounding crash of metal on metal.

I stepped forward, planting the Warhammer’s foot and leveling her battery at a nearby turret before letting the salvo fly, feeling her system bog down under the pressure of the heat load as the turret was ripped from its moorings and tossed into the void. “Crew and passengers of the Burning Pillar. I am Star Commander Jeremiah of the Raven Alliance. You are ordered to surrender immediately or suff-”

The sound of another set of ‘Mech’s coming down behind me cut my statement short as the sound of boots on hull plates was replaced by the resounding crash of a ‘Mech slamming down and skipping off the deck. “Jeremiah, I’ve got a problem!” 

Polsten’s own Warhammer IIC drifted past my right, its black and blue form tumbling end over end as it drifted away into the inky void. “Damn it all, Polsten…”

— Star Commander Jeremiah, Warhammer IIC 7 Pilot, 14th Raven Battle, Beta Galaxy. Lushann, June 3138.

Howdy Mechwarriors and welcome back to another ‘Mech overview! This week I continue to lurk around the Clan second lines, eagerly diving into bay after bay of glorious Clan big boys! Even if it annoys the shit out of my Clan advisor.

So, what do we have in the bay today? Well, I’m glad you asked! We’ve got the Warhammer IIC and it’s an absolute titan of a machine.

Chassis

We all know the venerable Warhammer, a roving long range fire support platform whose whole purpose in life is to pack a pair of PPCs, or any other heavy energy weapon, and all the weapons needed to back them up in a fight. Well, the Clans brought quite a few of them along with when they went on their Exodus and, after some centuries past, decided it was high time to build something new. A bigger Warhammer, a better Warhammer. A Warhammer who took advantage of all the Clan’s advancements and doubled down on killing shit dead.

The Warhammer IIC.

The Warhammer IIC is a beast of an 80 tonner Assault where all of them move at least 4/6, with a few reaching the lofty heights of 5/8. As well they all carry at least AC/20 proof armor all over, with the most common profile being 24 on the arms and side torsos, 30 on the CT and legs and 10/15/10 on the rear torsos. All of them pack some manner of big energy gun in the arms and a myriad of supporting assets in the torsos.

All of them are also quite angry.

Variants

These mechs have all been reviewed based on a standard F through S scale, which you can find described on our landing page here (along with all of our other ‘Mech reviews, the name of the box you can buy to get any of the mechs we have covered, and our general methodology).

Standard

Hockey season is coming and you know what that means: Time to set the fucking tone.

The Warhammer IIC is the prototypical ideal of a Warhammer. Packing on the ‘normal’ armor profile it carries along a pair of ER PPCs, five Medium Pulse Lasers, and an SRM 6 with one ton of ammo. Backing these guns we have twenty double heat sinks.

This is hateful. This is angry. This is a bevy of choose your own adventure heat math that has an endless choice of good heat profiles and will get some good damage outbound in exchange for some climbing of the scale. An alpha, on the run, sends you up 16 heat. Or 1 if you drop an ERPPC. Angry.

The Standard is a machine that hates, capable of beating most of its contemporaries to death and then chugging on past their smoking corpse like it’s just another day in the park and buddy it’s got a picnic date it is looking forward to.

For a genuinely workable 2,570 BV this thing is ready to beat your enemies to death and leave some space left over for the rest of the force, I say force because this thing is on IS and IS Clan general from the republic on, to step in and bodyblock at short range for it. The Standard wants nothing more than to park up in the backline and sling heavy fire away to its heart’s content, obliterating any pesky light ‘Mech with the gumption, or stupidity, to get near it.

Liberty’s Rating: A-. A devastating tool to beat people to death with at range that has good heat management, good armor, and acceptable speed! Get yours today!

2

The forecast calls for it to rain sideways today. Fuck an umbrella, get a CIWS.

The 2 is a simple beast, allow me to demonstrate:

Take a Standard. Do you have it? Hold it. Love it. Cherish it.

Good, very proud of you.

Now, pull the pulse lasers out and one for one swap the tonnage for a pair of LRM 15s and three tons of ammo. That’s it that’s the change. It still has forty heat sinking and now it builds forty heat with its long range guns. Movement heat on a, possibly, 60 damage long range strike is not bad, especially for 2,482 BV.

That said there is one problem here: It doesn’t have five fucking medium pulse lasers on it anymore. This is a marked downturn in its close in survivability to add long range clustered 5 pointers. That’s a personal decision but I personally pick the MPLs just about every time.

Liberty’s Rating: B. Still a great ‘Mech and a wonderful long range support piece, to be honest. Unfortunately the loss of the Standard’s capacity to look at anything that gets near it and sneer like a highschool bully is an astonishingly large part of what sets it apart from some of the other twin cERPPC carriers in the game.

3

Bigger. Badder. Brawlier. Not necessarily better.

Much like the 2, the 3 takes a Standard and makes a few changes. Namely a touch more armor, two more heat sinks and a couple of swapped out weapons. Dropping the ERPPCs and the SRM6 the 3 picks up a pair of Large Heavy Lasers to accompany the MPL Battery.

I, as I’ve stated many times before, adore Large Heavy Lasers. This is very funny, and very cool but there’s just one problem: Where’d the extra tonnage go?

Targeting computer.

Now this is great to drop the malus on the LHLs but it is even funnier when you think about the fact that it means a running alpha dumps out 14 heat. Ditching one of your LHLs means you’re down on the heat scale and ready for continuous -3 MPL violence. All for the acceptable price of 2,382 BV!

Fuck that’s angry.

Liberty’s Rating: B+. God this thing is a beast of a close range Assault. That much hate off the rail with a -3 is genuinely unacceptable at this price especially when backed up by the canopeners out in the arms.

4

ATM Violence time.

Yea, this is the ATM one. It takes a 2, decides the LRMs and SRMs are lame and should really like… just be one launcher? To answer this conundrum it simply mounts a pair of ATM 6s and packs in five tons of ammo for them!

In the arms for some reason? I dunno why. Granted it’s a Clan ‘Mech so its got integrated CASE which means it’s mostly fine.

Also it’s heat neutral on the run now! Which is great… also there’s an emotional support ER Small Laser in its head, guess instead of some extra armor they decided on doin’ some blinky light show work.

Okay?

Eh, for 2,386 BV I can’t be too mad at it, I love ATMs and pairing them with ER PPCs like this means you’ve got no heat problems and will just about always have the ability to pan in a full salvo which is quite nice!

Liberty’s Rating: B. Love me ATMs. ATMs good. ATMs angry. Use ATMs more.

5

Calling people HAGs is very rude and I would never do that. The 5 might though.

The 5 drops the armor a touch and pokes it around a little bit so it has 34 CT, 22 on the sides, 23 on the arms and 30 on the legs with 8/11/8 on the rear. It retains the movement profile but has fully overhauled the weapons and shifting its heatsinks down from twenty to fourteen.

Namely its primary weapons have become a pair of HAG 20s, one in each arm, backed up by a quartet of Medium Heavy Lasers in the side torsos, and a head mounted Streak SRM4… with a ton of CT ammo. Oof.

Heat wise it builds 13 heat on a running alpha which isn’t great but is quite manageable. 28 is enough to eat the full salvo of MHLs, only building movement heat while the pair of HAGs are happy to sing eternal on the fury road until their ammo bins are dry.

At 2,185 BV this is getting into the cheap zone for the Warhammer IIC series!

Liberty’s Rating: C+.  Price is fine. MHLs are funny and HAGs are as well so this could certainly be worse!

6

I… Why are you like this?

Someone decided the funniest thing they could do was to take a Standard, drop all the MPLs and five of the heat sinks so they could mount a HAG 30 and 4 tons of ammo… all in the right torso.

There is nothing in the left torso.

It also builds movement heat with both ERPPCs now, plus 6 on top of that if you pitch the HAG in. There’s some acceptable heat scale riding you can do here which is good but this ‘Mech would be made far better by just shunting the ammo, or the heat sinks even, up into the open left torso.

For 2,661 BV I… I’d really rather have the Standard, or the 2, or the 3… really any of the priors. This is still pretty usable but that’s about it.

Liberty’s Rating: C. Usable but there are just straight up better Warhammer IICs here.

7

Incredibly expensive Clan Assault ‘Mechs? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within my ‘Mech review?

This is the most expensive Warhammer IIC, by about 100 BV and it is hilarious. Nominally a ‘Mech built for Void Ops the 7 is here to jump, far. With the standard 4/6 movement profile not being very suitable for 0 G operations the 7 also mounts 6 Improved Jump Jets and two tons of cargo space meant to be used for extra reaction mass to feed them.

Now, fun movement profile and interesting lore bit aside, what are you actually getting for your 2,915 BV? Well, honestly something rather interesting.

Sticking relatively closely to the Standard’s loadout the 7 has a pair of ERPPCs, an ATM-6, a pair of MPLs, a pair of ERMLs, and a pair of Micro Pulse Lasers kept shielded from counter fire by an ECM suite. Oh, and kept hot by 15 double heat sinks. That’s movement heat on the ER PPCs, and a 26 heat bounce on a running alpha, god forbid you’re in the void when you pop a salvo off.

Burnin’ up in the sight of the gods.

Liberty’s Rating: D. This is hilarious but it is not worth that cost in the slightest. If you want a 4/6/6 beat stick assault go grab that funny Marauder IIC, the ten, that does this but with pulse lasers and is cheaper.

8

Hot. Fast. Schmoovin’. Groovin’. Explodin’. Wait wha-

More Large Heavy Lasers. We love Large Heavy Lasers in this house.

The 8 drops down to a far more reasonable 2,380 BV by making a few changes and some very funny choices. Namely, installing an XL engine, not for weight savings to buy more guns but instead to make the 8 go up to a 5/8 movement profile. This is quick for an 80 tonner and it’s not giving up much in the armor department to do it. Dragging in a pair of Large Heavy Lasers, one in each arm, a pair of ERMLs, one in each torso, a Streak six and… oh, a Plasma Cannon in each arm!

This is… an interesting build that I honestly kinda dig. It’s got 19 double heat sinks so it’s not short on heat sinking. Capable of popping both LHLs and running while heat neutral there’s a lot of options to play with here for heat.

This is an interesting fist fighting closer ‘Mech that just really wants to get in ontop of the opponent and start flogging them up the heat scale. Seems fun but… definitely eclipsed by some of its cousins.

Liberty’s Rating: C+. Usable and quite funny but there are several Plasma Cannon caddies, and Warhammer IICs in general, that are just… better.

9

I CAN HEAR IT! THE SONOROUS CRANK AND CLATTER OF THE WORLD’S ENGINE CHURNING TO LIFE TO LET ITS DIVINE RETRIBUTION FALL UPON THE HEADS OF THE NON-BELIEVERS! I AM THE RAC-HAMMER AND I AM THE END OF ALL OF MAN KIND!!! BOW BEFORE ME SPHEROID FOR I AM YOUR DOOOOOOM!!!

That’s right, It’s RAC time which means I am going feral and being made painfully aware of the sheer cost of this, the second most expensive Warhammer IIC. That’s right, she comes in at 2,819 BV and is only ever, at time of writing, available to Clan Sea Fox, a shame, really. But good GOD is this thing making me think about painting up a Sea Fox force. I adore the layout here and desperately want to field it, XXL an unfortunate malady or not.

So, what’s she got? Well, naturally, a pair of Clan RAC/5s, one in each arm and fed by a collective six tons of ammo, an ERML in each side torso accompanied by an ERSL, and an LRM 10 in the right torso with one ton of ammo. This is a good clip of gun cooled down by 16 double heat sinks meaning an alpha on the run sends you up 4 heat, or heat neutral without firing off the ERSLs. This is, surprisingly, manageable with the presence of the XXL engine which is heartening. Pair that with its blistering 5/8 movement profile and you’ve got a mover and a shaker ready to do some damage!

Liberty’s Rating: B-. Even with a XXL this thing is hilarious and I will be fielding one soon. Shame the Foxes are hoarding them, I can see the Davions loving this damned thing.

10

Baby Supernova.

• 4 ERLLs
• 2 SRM 6s
• 1 ERSL
• 23 Heat Sinks

That’s it.

That’s the ‘mech.

It can fire off all 4 ERLLs while retaining the standard engine and only go up 2+ movement heat. Honestly pretty great and quite an angry ‘Mech. At 2,290 BV I honestly should start running this thing more.

Liberty’s Rating: A-. Great ‘Mech. I love it. I’m gonna start using it.

11

Dipping into the bargain bin and coming up acceptable.

The 11 is the one I usually end up using, it’s cheap as hell at 2,021 BV and packs an ERML, a pair of LHLs and a pair of SSRM6s with a pair of ‘oh hey cool, A-Pods… welp, never gonna use those’ A-Pods. The heat sinking is enough to handle it, down 2 heat on the run slinging the LHLs and SSRM 6s and only going up 3 when tossing the ERML on.

The normal armor load, a standard engine, and the ammo for the SSRMs out in the arm make for a ‘Mech that’s gonna take some work to actually put down. Love this thing and it rarely fails me.

Liberty’s Rating: B. I love LHLs, this is cheap as fuck for a Clan assault with this kind of weight of fire and longevity. Thing’s great.

12

OH NO THE RULES BOOK ‘MECH

The 12 is a 9 that has had the guns messed with and the armor made… weird.

Toting a pair of ERPPCs, a pair of ERMLs, a pair of ERSLs, an SRM 6, an ECM suite, 20 DHS and a good old XXL engine the 12 is quite the return to form, save the damned engine… and the armor.

The 12 eschews the usual ferro-fibrous armor for Heat-Dissipating armor which helps reduce external heat. That’s… not bad? If you have a local group that has a hankering for infernos and plasma this is probably good for you but if not then I’d probably just take the Standard since this thing is 110 BV more expensive than it at 2,680 BV and is not near as effective considering the loss of the pulses, the acquisition of a XXL and the bumped cost.

Liberty’s Rating: C. I… unless you’ve got extenuating circumstances just take a Standard.

13

I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now

The 13 is a mix of the Standard and the 2 that gets the best of both worlds by ditching armor and packing in an XL engine. Take the two and smash them together and you’ve got it.

• 2 ERPPCs? Check.
• 2 LRM-15s? Check.
• 5 MPLs? Check.
• One(1) SRM-6? Check.

It’s a shitload of gun that doesn’t have heat problems in any of its brackets that costs 2,715 BV. It’s honestly a very serviceable ‘Mech that I only wish didn’t lose so much armor. I’d take one less MPL for the extra 2 tons, or whatever, of armor here.

That said, this thing’s a great fire support ‘Mech that can easily hold its own if someone gets in close and that’s really all ya need from it!

Liberty’s Rating: A-. A touch more armor and I’d be in love.

Final Thoughts

Warhammer IICs are fucking funny. They are also largely quite good and as such you should definitely poke around at them and see what you find the most fun and effective. Personally the Standard, 4, 9, 10, and 13 call to me on fundamental levels.

I can’t think of anything special I’d want here other than like… an LPL variant I suppose? Some weird Clan equivalent to the WHM-10T, maybe? Not sure, but what we have is wonderfully funny so I’m quite pleased.

Until next time! Fair weather, good seas and happy Hammering!

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